d. Malt liquor had been expressly forbidden
to Mrs. Verner. It made her cough frightfully.

"You know, ma'am, the doctors have said----"

"Will you hold your tongue? And give me what I require? You are as bad
as Mr. Verner."

Catherine reached a tumbler, poured it half full, and handed it. Mrs.
Verner did not take it.

"Fill it," she said.

So old Catherine, much against her will, had to fill it, and Sibylla
drained the glass to the very bottom. In truth, she was continually
thirsty; she seemed to have a perpetual inward fever upon her. Her
shoulders were shivering as she set down the glass.

"Go and find my opera cloak, Catherine. It must have dropped on the
stairs, I know I put it on as I left my room."

Catherine quitted the kitchen on the errand. She would have liked to
close the door after her; but it happened to be pushed quite back with a
chair against it; and the pointedly shutting it might have been noticed
by Sibylla. She found the opera cloak lying on the landing, near
Sibylla's bedroom door. Catching it up, she slipped off her shoes at the
same moment, stole down noiselessly, and went into the presence of Miss
Tempest.

Lucy looked astonished. She sat at the table reading, waiting with all
patience the entrance of Sibylla, ere she made tea. To see Catherine
steal in covertly with her finger to her lips, excited her wonder.

"Miss Lucy, she's going to the ball," was the old servant's salutation,
as she approached close to Lucy, and spoke in the faintest whisper. "She
is shivering over the kitchen fire, with hardly a bit of gown to her
back, so far as warmth goes. Here's her opera cloak: she dropped it
coming down. Cook's gone out for a fly."

Lucy felt startled. "Do you mean Mrs. Verner?"

"Why, of course I do," answered Catherine. "She has been upstairs all
this while, and has dressed herself alone. She must not go, Miss Lucy.
She's looking like a ghost. What will Mr. Verner say to us if we let
her! It may just be her death."

Lucy clasped her hands in her consternation. "Catherine, what can we do?
We have no influence over her. She would not listen to us for a moment.
If we could but find Mr. Verner!"

"He was going round to Mr. Jan's when my lady drove off. I heard him say
it. Miss Lucy, I can't go after him; she'd find me out; I can't leave
her, or leave the house. But he ought to be got here."

Did the woman's words point to the suggestion that Lucy should go? Lucy
may have thought it;